Articles for Native American Heritage Month

This is the last of the months for this year, so when I decided to do it, I had more time to prepare.

By the time we got to November, I had four articles and three names I wanted to look up. 

That was a start, but I really wanted to do some searches and get the whole schedule set for the month. I mean, sometimes when you know what you are doing you can put things in a better order.

That just didn't feel right. Instead I went along, with material presenting itself in time as new articles popped up, or as I remembered people and connections.

Some of it came from the music. Redbone was on the list, whom I knew, and then also Romeo Void. I had not known that Debora Iyall (November 21st) was Cowlitz; that's pretty local. 

One of those led to an extra link. Christian Staebler's Redbone: The True Story of a Native American Rock Band has a nice account of the Hendrix/Redbone meeting, and Hendrix's own roots. None of the Redbone articles really explored that, so I added one that day (November 26th) that was about Jimi.

In addition, I could post an article about Stephanie Craig (November 19th) because we went to hear her speak at the library. Since then, I could not stop thinking about a video, One Becomes the Other, I had seen from Jeffrey Gibson. I posted an article about him the day after hers, and a link to the video.

The video is about items locked away in museum archives, with no one seeing them or connecting to them. The potential advantage of being in a museum collection is that it can inspire and educate others. I will not do so when locked away in drawers where only staff has access.

That is the antithesis of a lot of these articles, which ended up being mostly current or sometimes history that was fairly recent. 

So much of what we get wrong about Native Americans is about relegating them strictly to the past. They're still here, and that refusal to connect makes some abuses easier.

At the beginning of the month, I could never have planned on posting about Confederated Tribes of Umatilla citizen Elaine Miles being detained by ICE, but it happened.

When I decided I was going to post articles for each of the heritage/pride months this year, it was because the government was erasing history and I was determined not to forget.

I don't know how next year will shape up, but the need to remember remains.

November daily articles: 

11/1 CCC totem poles: https://www.juneauempire.com/news/fdrs-new-deal-helped-preserve-alaska-native-art-like-these-three-totem-poles-in-juneau/

11/2 First first responders: https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-first-first-responders

11/3 Canoe: https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-canoe-in-the-forest/

11/4 Water potatoes: https://www.vox.com/climate/377249/climate-solutions-traditional-indigenous-foods-water-potato

11/5 Residential school story https://thewalrus.ca/my-father-was-found-in-a-residential-school-incinerator-when-he-was-an-infant/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

11/6 Ada Blackjack: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ada-blackjack-arctic-survivor

11/7 Bill Reid: https://www.visitexpo74.com/art-and-music/bill-reid-bear

11/8 Nancy Ward: https://www.allthingscherokee.com/nancy-ward/

11/9 Maud Bolin: https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/it-happened-here-the-remarkable-life-of-maud-bolin-pilot-rodeo-star-philanthropist/article_b0f6c41c-6529-11e7-9724-17ac3034eeb5.html

11/10 Allan Houser: https://westernartandarchitecture.com/june-july-2025/perspective-allan-houser-1914-1994-a-legacy-of-independence-and-innovation

11/11 Code Talkers: https://historychronicler.com/navajo-code-talkers-and-their-lasting-impact-on-wwii/

11/12 MMIWG: https://icnacsj.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-what-is-mmiw/

11/13 The Deadly Aunties: https://goldcomedy.com/resources/the-deadly-aunties-are-getting-uncles/

11/14 Rebecca Roanhorse: https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924734316/i-longed-to-see-something-different-so-i-wrote-it-questions-for-rebecca-roanhors

11/15 Louise Erdrich: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/09/1052730892/louise-erdrichs-the-sentence-review

11/16 Wilma Mankiller: https://savingplaces.org/guides/wilma-mankiller-first-woman-principal-chief-cherokee-nation

11/17 Xelena Gonzalez and Adriana Garcia: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/25/1166059909/author-xelena-gonzalez-and-illustrator-adriana-garcia-on-their-new-childrens-boo

11/18 Adam Beach: https://www.cbc.ca/arts/q/adam-beach-has-never-been-afraid-to-confront-his-trauma-on-set-1.7120974

11/19 Stephanie Craig: https://www.orartswatch.org/hands-of-the-ancestors-kalapuya-artist-stephanie-craigs-mix-of-past-and-present/

11/20 Jeffrey Gibson: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/29/1190952604/jeffrey-gibson-indigenous-artist-venice-biennale

Bonus video: https://vimeo.com/413789286

11/21 Debora Iyall: https://www.slumbermag.com/enter-the-void-catchinig-up-with-debora-lyall/

11/22 Spirit Mountain: https://www.smokesignals.org/articles/2025/03/13/spirit-mountain-community-fund-awards-more-than-400-000-in-grants/

11/23 Greenland Inuit: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wlw2qj113o?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

11/24 Makah: https://www.knkx.org/environment/2025-11-21/makah-tribes-treaty-protected-whaling-rights-remain-blocked-after-more-than-25-years

11/25 Cherokee Nation: https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/oklahoma-tribes-file-lawsuit-over-reservation-hunting-rights/ar-AA1R3Y7f

11/26 Jimi Hendrix and Redbone: https://redbone-band.com/blog/2025/1/17/who-is-redbone-the-pioneers-of-native-american-rock-music

Bonus article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03007766.2022.2099196#d1e203

11/27 First Thanksgiving: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/thanksgiving-myth-and-what-we-should-be-teaching-kids-180973655/

11/28 Elaine Miles detained by ICE: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/northern-exposure-actress-elaine-miles-detained-by-ice-told-id-is-fake/ar-AA1RlpW5

11/29 Leonard Peltier: https://apnews.com/article/leonard-peltier-release-fbi-killings-indigenous-rights-8b7da707f4921e974b53ede7d032cf23

11/30 Movies and shows: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/native-american-movies-tv-shows-indigenous-history-culture-thanksgiving

Related posts:  

Black History Month: https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/07/black-history-month-articles-2025.html

Women's History Month: https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/05/fighting-erasure-daily-articles-and.html 

Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage Month: https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/07/asian-american-pacific-islander-history.html 

Pride Month: https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/07/pride-articles-for-june.html 

Disability Pride Month: https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/08/disability-pride-month-2025.html 

Hispanic Heritage Month: https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/10/hispanic-heritage-month-2025-articles.html 

Sympathy for the weasel

I realize that doesn't sound super sympathetic. He definitely wasn't the devil, but he was something. 

Before I get into issues of death, communication, and misogyny, this is a recap of our history and interactions in the hopes of answering all questions (which is lengthy). It is also my attempt to offer some understanding to him.

Two people that I care about a lot are very sad about his passing. One of them said, as we were texting: "He could be a jerk for sure. He could also be funny and considerate."

I never really got that side of him, but my time with him was limited. People contain multitudes, and that's important.

We met in 1st grade and went through to grade 5 in the same school, but usually not in the same class. I never really got close to him. I didn't really like him, but I couldn't point to any specific reason. With most of the kids I didn't really like back then, I usually knew why.

There was a boundary change for Chehalem in fifth grade. At the time, elementary school was grades 1 through 6, then junior high for 7 through 9, and high school for 10 through 12. 

Most of the kids affected by the change started the next year at Aloha Park. Those of us who were going to be sixth graders could choose to remain at Chehalem for our final year of grade school, then on to Five Oaks for junior high. Otherwise, Chehalem fed into Mountain View for junior high. Both Mountain View and Five Oaks fed into Aloha High School. 

Four of us chose to do have our final year at Chehalem, but he went to Aloha Park for 6th grade. I suspect he was not that attached to anyone at Chehalem and was glad for the change.

I know he was picked on for being fat. I was too, but being a heavy kid with his name when Fat Albert was a popular cartoon was not great. I know people "joked" about it, but I don't know how much.

At Five Oaks we ended up in the same social group. That consisted of some girls I really liked and some guys who were mostly not that great, but we still did things together. All but one of those guys was mentioned in his obituary, which seemed a little weird. 

Things we did together included plays and drama class. I gave up plays in high school and the rest of the group didn't. I saw all of them some in high school, but mainly I was doing other things.

We had a brief encounter at the ten-year reunion. Everyone was talking about him losing weight, which he had. I mentioned him looking different and he seemed irritated. I really did not handle that well, partly because in the back of my mind I was thinking that I still don't like this guy, but also he had gone from red-headed to blond and I was fixating on that, though I didn't actually ask. Did it naturally lighten? Because it was really red! Did he bleach it and then color it? Did he lose his hair and it grew back differently? Was there other cancer?

(One factor that comes up in some of these stories is that I am probably not completely neurotypical. Years later I still wonder what was going on with his hair and probably most people did not think about it that much.) 

The next major interaction happened around 2008. I was newly on Facebook and campaigning hard against another guy from the junior high group who was running for office. I had also come to learn that candidate had been really abusive and awful to multiple people I cared about. Albert was not the abuser, but he tolerated it and was not helpful. I did hold that against him, but I was late to the party and those were not my stories.

Anyway, through mutual acquaintances I heard that those two had been discussing my blog and the page hits it was getting. I then got a friend request from him. I was not going to accept it, but I didn't feel right just ignoring it because of our shared history, so I sent him a direct message explaining that.

He wrote back a really angry message insulting my blog in a way that was supposed to be a "Gotcha! I know about your blog!", except I thought the reason I gave made it pretty clear that his interaction with the blog was why I was not accepting his friend request. I knew that he knew about it, but maybe I did not communicate that clearly. 

I blocked him then and didn't think about it anymore. 

Around the 20-year reunion in 2010, I started hearing from a lot of classmates (all women) that he had hit on, using the exact same phrasing. In at least two cases he also aggressively hit on friends of theirs, apparently from going through their Facebook feeds. 

At least one of those women started the conversation because he had been badmouthing me. She was trying to see if we'd had a bad breakup or something, like were we rivals for his affection?

I kind of laughed that off, but I saw the light go out of her eyes when I repeated his pickup lines; she had thought she was special. Some women had worse experiences, and for some it was mildly annoying or surprising, but there were at least a couple that were really disappointed. 

Plus he was in a long-term relationship the entire time. 

I had forgotten about him badmouthing me. I was pretty sure I had posted about his relentless hitting on classmates before so searched. Yes. 2010. It mentions the badmouthing and the digging for information there. At the time I probably just wrote it off as him still holding a grudge, but it could have been an a strategic attempt to undermine my credibility. 

When I say that some women had much worse experiences than me, for at least two, that included looking at their Facebook friends and finding additional women to hit on, where the friends were requesting intervention. There were also some overly angry, maybe even frightening, responses to refusals. That message I got back in 2008? That tracks, and seems to be a reaction to setting a boundary.

I believe his spree of hitting on classmates happened shortly after a lot of us were getting on Facebook and right around the time of the ten-year reunion, which makes sense. It went on for quite a while after, but I can see where suddenly being in touch with people again felt like an opportunity. (Our class has not been immune to reunion-related hookups.)

Almost done.

I don't actually remember which election it was when he was overbearingly correcting everyone's political posts and comments and getting blocked. I'd had him blocked for at least a few years by then, so I never saw his posts

What I did see was replies to him on other threads, which gave kind of an idea. In addition, whenever I would mention unfriending or blocking someone, I would get a few questions of whether it was him (or sometimes Kirk, who in some ways was very similar but with whom I had much less interaction). 

I actually don't even know what his political leanings were. It sounds like his general view was "I am smarter than you; even if you said something right you are still wrong in a way I must explain to you!"

Sounds Libertarian.

I do know what it's liked to be picked on. I know some of that continued even into high school. We had some common ground there.

For a long time I believed my real life would start and everything would be great when I finally lost weight. I never did, but I have sometimes thought that if I did, I might resent people who treated me differently then. I could also end up really disappointed when it didn't fix everything. That might have been a factor for some things with him (with structural misogyny also being huge).

From our interactions at school I do remember some attempts to make things about himself and get validation. I suspect that was something he did want a lot. I was not good about giving it to him, what with not really liking him and also this being around the time when I discovered that attention-seekers were my people-pleaser Kryptonite. 

I can also comprehend how -- if you are not enough for yourself -- aligning with someone who is perceived as more powerful -- even if that is through their mistreatment of others -- makes a certain sense. I don't like it, but I get it.

That's what our relationship has been through my eyes. 

The hitting on women and getting angry at boundaries is why I think of him as a creep. The need to demonstrate his intellectual superiority to everyone is why I think of him as a jerk. That is still not all he was. Maybe some of him being funny and considerate was part of trying to be ingratiating to get more validation; I could have been kinder about that. 

We all have our flaws, and none of us are only our flaws. 

I can feel sorry for him. I still don't like him.

I feel somewhat bad for complicating things for people who did like him, but there was another side of the response that made it feel very necessary.    

I think that's a pretty complete background. Friday through Sunday are different topics, but next week I will try and explore some of the other issues that have come up through his death.

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2010/01/ive-always-had-such-crush-on-you.html 

My Facebook post blows up: a series

The first thing I should mention is that yesterday was a really busy day.

I did try writing a blog post. I wasn't sure what I really wanted to write about, but the real problem was that I kept leaving. That also affected what happened on Facebook.

The first thing that happened was that the day before, I found out that someone died.

This was someone I met in first grade, and spent a fair amount of time with in junior high, but we were not close. Fair or not, I never really liked him. I know a lot of other people had problems with him over the years.

Suddenly everyone was so sad over his passing.

Okay, that's fair. Not everyone has the same experiences. I just kept finding it more irritating that there was all this praise. Like, I remember when a bunch of people were blocking him; did we just forget that? Or did the blocks work so well that those people hadn't heard? 

Good riddance posts would probably be in bad taste.

Fair or not, I was getting more irritated. 

This was all happening on Facebook, so there I wrote" “I am feeling very hard-hearted today, because that guy was a creep and a jerk.”

This was someone from school, but the first people seeing my posts were from church.

It had not occurred to me at all that this particular post could sound like it was about a bad breakup or failed romantic relationship. Probably school friends would be less likely to think that I would post anything about dating, but I was getting some sympathy that I had not expected.

I also got one direct message from a school friend asking about identity. More of those came later.

I wrote a reply for clarification:

"He's from school. I remember a lot of people blocking him as he relentlessly attacked their political posts, and also him hitting on girl after girl with the exact same words, even while living with someone, and that if someone needed support after being bullied that he always favored the bully, but sure. Great guy."

Plus in that conversation I mentioned that he was dead, which probably removed any doubt. 

But also, I left. First I went on the Franz Bakery tour, which was great. Later that night there was a church activity, plus setting up before and cleaning up after. There was a lot of time when I simply was not looking at things.

Then I got back home and looked. Oh. 

A lot of people chimed in. Some were surprised, but no, in fact, there were people who remembered those aspects about him. There were also people who did really feel grief, but could acknowledge those aspects. 

There were also people who were shocked, and that is not surprising.

There was a lot to think about, regarding death and how we remember people and misogyny and safe spaces and communication. I wrote a lot in my journal last night, and remembered other things that so I wrote more this morning. I am going to spend some time on this.

I had not been sure what to write about, but sometimes information presents itself. 

Movies about death: The Farewell and Shadowlands

I did do some writing on media about death previously:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2020/01/a-year-or-so-of-magical-reading.html 

Even though that post title indicates a focus on reading, the arc on Blackish where Bow's father dies had a big impact.

There were movies that were part of this too, with mixed results.

The Farewell (2019)

This one touched me a lot. I did actually reference (though not very much) it in a different blog post:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/07/movies-for-apahm-2024.html 

That timing is weird to me. I seem to remember seeing it in the theater, which should have been around 2019 or 2020, but I did not write about it until 2024? Or maybe I had just been holding on to it, not really completely processing it.

It appears that I saw it while I was still a full-time caregiver; I can't imagine why I had to put off writing about it.  

In the movie, the grandmother of a large family has cancer that it is assumed will be fatal. They decide to keep it from her, but hold a wedding so all of the family will come together and can spend time with her. One granddaughter is especially struggling with it, though you do see the pressure on the grandson getting married as well. 

We can only assume that Nai-Nai's children and extended family are having struggles that they are not showing.

The granddaughter's father takes her aside and explains that they are carrying the burden for the grandmother.

There is a level at which I still don't know how I feel about that. It can be beautiful to help people with their burdens, but I hate not having knowledge. If the grandmother would have specific things she wanted to do to prepare for death, they are not giving her the chance. They seem to be thinking that knowing would overshadow everything, and it might. 

Making plans without knowing outcomes is part of life. 

(As it is, it was based on filmmaker Lulu Wang's real family, and her grandmother lived at least six years past her diagnosis. She did find out because of the movie.)

What I do know is how hard it hit that we (especially me) were carrying the burden for my mother. 

Because of her mother, Alzheimer's was a big fear for her. It could have been horrible for her as she felt things slipping away, but through a combination of denial and not being able to perceive and know plus forgetting things that did sink in, in many ways her suffering has been relatively light. As she started to not be able to have peace in the house, she moved into residential care and found an active social life where she was very popular. She became carefree in a way that she never was before.

Back at home we are still feeling it. We are going to be feeling it for a while.

Shadowlands (1993)

I know I saw this much after its release, and I have to say I hated it.

I love C.S. Lewis, and I like A Grief Observed, which I assumed had influenced this.

First of all, this movie, based on a play, is pretty boring, even with some good actors in it.

I don't hate it because it's boring, but because I think it is so completely false to the real people that they should have made it straight fiction.

I don't object to them only showing one of her sons; combining characters is pretty normal. 

Lewis was indeed caught by surprise by falling in love with Joy. It did change things for him, but the film portrayed him as this barely awake to humanity recluse who only came alive because of her. 

Before Joy, Lewis was a soldier, he had a long-term relationship with another woman, and he had to care for a very alcoholic brother. These are mostly things I know from other people who hated the film, but they aren't hard to fine. One former schoolmate described Lewis as "riotously amusing."

Because the writer has no idea of Lewis as a person, we have a Lewis who has to learn to live not just from Joy but also from a fictional student who falls asleep in class because he stays up late reading books that he steals.

You can do that without taking up a spot at Cambridge!

It's like the worst fan fiction where the writers are trying to correct the flaws in a work that they couldn't understand because it didn't align closely enough to their experiences and worldview. (Which makes it weird that there is a line about books helping us not be lonely, because if you can't learn to understand other points of view from books, what are you even doing?) 

I guess it's good if sometimes the media you are watching for one specific purpose does not really work with that purpose. 

I probably did cry when Joy died, but it didn't stay with me. 

I am still mad about this movie years later. I kind of want to hold it against James Frain, who played the narcoleptic kleptomaniac, but he is a good actor. It's not his fault. It's the playwright. 

If at some point I decide to watch The Farewell again, there might be value in it and there would certainly be emotion in it.

Shadowlands does not merit any more viewings. 

But was it cathartic?

Probably not.

I believe it was when I was writing about Thunderbolts* and its emotional effect on me that I got a little hung up.

I was simply trying to write a sentence about how it wasn't exactly catharsis but -- instead of saying what "it" was -- I got hung up on the concept of "catharsis". 

I thought I had read once that catharsis was a myth, but people say things like that about many concepts. Often the concept is still useful.

I also recall Alice Sebold being frustrated when people would tell her how writing The Lovely Bones must have been cathartic for her regarding her own rape. No, that was not how she felt about it. 

So, even when we use the word (whether in noun or adjective form), we might be getting it wrong. 

Probably one good rule of thumb is to not reference other people's trauma just to sound smart.   

As concept, "catharsis" has medical, psychological, and dramatic constructions, and even multiple meanings within those categories.

For example, from a therapy standpoint, there is disagreement about whether catharsis for getting anger out helps to dispel or to reinforce anger.

I had not thought about anger so much. My idea of catharsis was that something brings out the sadness so you cry and feel better. 

The word "purge" is sometimes used. 

A lot of it is predicated on it being common behavior for people to repress or ignore their pain and problems. 

That totally happens. Then catharsis is supposed to be bringing it out into the open so it can heal. 

There are questions about whether something setting off that grief for pain is effective too. In fact, some of the theatrical disagreement is that if the play gives the audience catharsis then they are not motivated to change things. That can make the art a total failure, relegating it to bourgeois pap. 

Okay, that was mainly Brecht.

Allow me to add that right now I am reading a book called The Myth Of Closure. One thing it argues is that the pursuit of closure can prevent growth, especially if we are waiting for it to act.

I am leaning toward agreeing with that. "Closure" sounds more final than anything in my experience.

For a long time I would find movies bringing out a disproportionate amount of tears, but that never brought significant relief.

For one source of the tears, I first became aware of it around 2003, but the next real leap forward in understanding and coming to grips with it happened in 2018. I may be a slow learner, but there were a lot of experiences and reflections and things along the way. 

What I learned in 2003 was important and did make a difference, but there was a limit to how much I understood about it then. Now I understand it better, but there is still a limit to how much I have been able to put it into practice.

I do remember being afraid that at one point there would be an insight that would incapacitate me emotionally, where I would only be able to cry for three days. When the next big realization came, it was fine, and even anticlimactic. 

I believe that was because of many tears -- working out the emotion -- and many insights -- working out the understanding -- along the way. When everything finally came together it did so easily, if you don't count all the years that went into it.

Hearts and heads are not always (maybe not even often) in sync. 

There can be great peace in them coming together. 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/10/all-better.html  

Three times

Dealing with my mother's impending death has me remembering two other things times when the possibility was right there.

I don't talk about the first one a lot. My mother was dropping me off at the train. 

At this point, she was still doing pretty well. We were still a couple of years away from her getting lost or losing any existing memories. However, it was getting darker, and the cars around us looked fast with glaring lights. I had this terrible thought that it was not safe to let her drive back to the house by herself. 

It was a short distance, though one she would get lost from, maybe two years later. It should have been fine, but an inner voice was screaming at me to not let it happen. I had her drive back home with me. Once she was in the house I ran to the bus stop. I was a little late, but I knew it was the right thing.

It felt like a real possibility that there would have been a crash, not necessarily even dementia-related, and that I would have lost her.

It was my birthday, and I had been fighting with my sisters. That would have been terrible timing. 

Possibly some of the financial losses and burnout that have happened over the years would not have happened, at least not in the same way, but I think the responsibility I would have felt and that my siblings would have possibly felt toward me... it's hard to believe that would have been a better outcome. 

Some good things that did happen would have been missed as well.

The second thing happened a few years later when I was already her caregiver. A few months ahead, I started feeling like she would die in October.

Intellectually I thought that would probably be okay; we would miss some of the heartbreaks that come with the progression of dementia. 

As we got closer, I felt like it was too soon and would hurt too much. I started praying -- begging -- that she wouldn't leave us yet. 

Obviously, she didn't. I could just have been wrong, but my feelings were that we had been getting close and gotten a reprieve, for which I was grateful. 

Once again there were hard times that followed, along with good times too.

I have wondered if there was a purpose in going through those emotions, like maybe she was supposed to stay longer all along, but I needed to have a different perspective on it. 

Maybe all of that was in my head.

Regardless, now it is not just my feelings; medical staff have told us that she has entered end of life.

At this point, the good times are very limited. When I visit her and I talk or sing or hold her hand, I feel love for her and that is not a bad thing, but it's not great.

Intellectually, this should be fine, more so than at any time previous.

Emotionally, there is still this internal cry of "Don't leave!"

I am not praying for that. I think this really is getting to the point where it is the best thing. 

I also don't know that it is possible to be emotionally ready and welcome it. There might be relief after it has happened, but I am not feeling it now. As much as this has hurt all along, anticipating the end hurts and I am sure the end itself will hurt.

Which I guess is my long way of saying that our hearts and heads are not always caught up.

I think the other important thing to note is that life is hard, but I believe it is worth it. 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/10/this-is-sadness.html  

Songs squeezed in between things

As previously mentioned, last year I went longer than usual for Hispanic Heritage Month songs and did not really do songs themed on Native American Heritage Month:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/12/daily-songs-for-hispanic-heritage-month.html 

I thought this year could be the reverse of that, but then we also had vacations where I was not able to post, and let's not forget that there is Halloween in October.

Finishing up going back through the start of the Billboard Hot lists put me at about October 15th, the official end of Hispanic Heritage Month.

The other interesting factor is that last year in Indian Country Today, Miles Morriseau posted songs by Indigenous artists that could be good for Halloween. I held onto it for a year, but the plan was to end October 2025 with that, and then with November's usual 30 songs by Native American artists, that would kind of even things up.

https://ictnews.org/news/indigenous-halloween-playlist-witches-devils-and-a-voodoo-queen/ 

Of course, then I did not post songs for October 19th through 22nd, so Morrisseau's Halloween song choices ended on November 4th. 

I am really having to embrace mess this year.

Anyway, this is how things went down from October 15th through November 4th" 

I really like the idea of Halloween caroling. I think it could be a lot of fun, and probably a good set would be three songs. This is my tentative list, though "Sweet Vampires" may not be completely family-friendly.

10/15 “The Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett
10/16 “Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon
10/17 “Sweet Vampires” by Alkaline Trio

Speaking of Halloween and Disneyland, I thought I would see what the Cadaver Dans and the Downtown Disney SCARE-olers sing. It is not surprising that they use "Monster Mash" and "This is Halloween", as well as "Grim Grinning Ghosts. The Cadaver Dans apparently also do "Happy Trails", and since most of those performances seem to happen in Frontierland, that makes sense.

That didn't necessarily change my caroling picks, but I did throw "Grim Grinning Ghosts" into the daily songs list on our departure date, as well as “Recuérdame” from Coco, though you could argue that song should have been for November 2nd.

10/18 “Grim Grinning Ghosts” by The Mellomen

--vacation--

10/23 “Recuérdame” by Carlos Rivera

Plus, there were at least two songs from artists that I listened to in the months in question, that have made my regular Halloween playlists. Well, there were two:

10/24 “La Vampiresa” by Los Tigrillos
10/25 “Zombie Love” by Lightning Cloud

Finally, I finished with the suggestions from ICT, with some familiar names and some less so.  

10/26 “Witch Queen of New Orleans” by Redbone
10/27 “Showdown at Big Sky” by Robbie Robertson
10/28 “Devil Came Down on Sunday” by Derek Miller
10/29 “Evil” by Crystal Shawanda
10/30 “Monsters” by Kristi Lane Sinclair
10/31 “Jack the Ripper” by Link Wray
11/1 “Fox” by Beatrice Deer
11/2 “Eyes of a Stranger” by Breach of Trust
11/3 “Hoodoo Lady” by Blue Moon Marquee
11/4 “PBC” by Halluci Nation

I hope you enjoyed your Halloween. 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/10/halloween-playlists.html  

Arrogance and harm

When I said I was still angry about The End of Alzheimer's, it was a combination of putting a big burden on people, but only offering for false hope. 

I'd already had a similar experience. It was more personal, but the lie was dispelled pretty quickly. It could have been worse.

It was the bad doctor friend. She has come up a few times before, but this was when we were still going on walks together.

When we were talking about my issues instead of her issues (which was not very often), dementia would come up a lot. She started talking about how it could be fixed with coconut oil and she wished she could take charge of a memory care facility, start giving it to the residents, and watch everyone be amazed by their improvement.

I was pretty sure she was full of it, but there was some desperation that made me ask for specifics. 

I don't think I did it on that walk, when she was bragging, but on the next one after mulling it over. If she was so sure, what amounts would she use? Were there any studies or guides that I could read?

Part of my skepticism was probably that I had seen coconut oil listed as a miracle cure for other things, like apple cider vinegar or essential oils. I didn't think it was likely, but if there was a chance I was going to try it.

When pressed, all of the confidence faded away. Then she was shrugging and mumbling and there was absolutely no reason to place her at the head of a memory care facility.

I bet it would not really have been possible to mend her daughter's cavities with a mineral oil rinse. 

It was disappointing, but I was at least partially prepared for the disappointment. Later when I realized that she was not really that supportive shortly after she turned abusive... I did not end up being devastated at the loss.

More recently I saw a forum post where a man who recently learned his mother has Stage IV cancer was wondering about Ivermectin. He knew it was a long shot, but was hoping.

That's an anti-parasite medication, so probably not.

Based on the grammar and other factors, he did not come across as a particularly bright person. It also came through that the thought of losing his mother was really hurting him.

Mentioning that particular medication makes it likely that he is a Trump voter. That would go along with the other indicators that he is not bright.

He also still has feelings. I don't know how much harm he actively wishes on liberals and people of color, but he would want health for this mother. I can relate to that.

Unscrupulous people have done many things to lower the possibility of good health outcomes for many people, including his mother. 

That's not just turning people away from vaccines and toward specific medications that would not work for the intended goals. That also has to do with funding and education... there is a long list of issues there.

I am just thinking about how some of the drivers know what they are doing, while some will take a little bit of hearsay and run with it until they have to back it up. They never learn any humility from brushing up against their wrongness. 

Different motivations; same results. 

Books about dementia

Some time ago I started a reading list that I called "Death, Dementia, and Being a Mess".

I've referenced my issues with "mission creep" before. 

As it is, I haven't read anything new about dementia or death for a while, though there has been a resurgence in dealing with those issues this year. Figuring out being a mess is a whole separate issue, though I think some of my reading relating to trauma, daughters, and adoption will go with that.

(Just for clarification, I am not adopted, but works on that cover some related issues.)

Anyway, if you end up having to deal with the dementia of a loved one, here are some books that you may find helpful, as well as a couple that might sound helpful but really aren't.

Practical books for caregivers

The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for People with Alzheimer Disease, Other Dementias, and Memory Loss in Later Life by Nancy L. Mace and Peter V. Rabins

This is the most complete of the books, which can make it pretty overwhelming. It is also really well-organized, so you can focus on the relevant sections as you need them.

Help is Here: When Someone You Love Has Dementia by Marian O. Hodges and Anne P. Hill 

Also very thorough with good advice. A lot of caregiver programs will recommend this one.

Living with Mild Cognitive Impairment (Anderson, Murphy, and Troyer)  

This one is not quite as strong as the other two, but can still be helpful.  

More on the emotional side 

Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live With Unresolved Grief by Pauline G. Boss
Loving Someone Who Has Dementia: How to Find Hope While Coping with Stress and Grief by Pauline G. Boss

Pauline Boss is the boss of unresolved grief, which comes up a lot with dementia. 

If I recall correctly, the field started for families of POWs and MIA soldiers, where there was loss but not with the finality that can be a signal for healing. 

We have been losing parts of our mother for over twelve years. That's been a lot of pain. Even as we get closer to our own finality, there are just a lot of terrible feelings. You can't fix it, but you can understand it better.

Actually, I just found that she has a new one out that I need to read.

There are always new developments. 

Getting a new perspective 

The Myth of Alzheimer's: What You Aren't Being Told About Today's Most Dreaded Diagnosis by Peter J. Whitehouse and Daniel George

This sounds like a conspiracy theory book, but that's a different one. 

It does examine some traditional ways of thinking that were outdated or not well thought out, but it might be outdated. I mainly remember getting a new perspective on amyloid plaques, but the general knowledge may have caught up by now.

The Gift of Alzheimer's: New Insights into the Potential of Alzheimer's and Its Care by Maggie LaTourelle

There is a nice idea here, but it tries to be more profound than it is. 

LaTourelle felt that some of her mother's sayings that didn't make sense might indicate a  more profound understanding, like what could a "broken modality" mean, when modalities aren't things that get broken?

Regardless, I think it is worth lovingly listening to what your loved one is saying. My mother told many stories about children that never existed and her helping them with their problems. Maybe she was working through anxieties she'd had about motherhood and her parenting; I know that had been a constant worry for her.

I think there will be a time when more of this will make sense, and maybe it won't seem so cruel. 

You don't need this book for that.

Children's books

Grandpa Green by Lane Smith, 
Grandpa's Music: A Story About Alzheimer's by Allison Acheson, illustrated by Bill Farnsworth

You probably have no idea how many children's books about Alzheimer's there are. These are both pretty good, including honoring the capabilities the grandparent had and helping children to understand in an age appropriate manner. 

I'm still angry about this one 

The End of Alzheimer's: The First Program to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline by Dale E. Bredesen

This gives you thirty-six different areas to work on so that you don't need to have Alzheimer's, even though it admits that a lot of them aren't backed up by science. It would be almost impossible to do all of them perfectly and you will buy lots of supplements. The real moral of the story is to knock yourself out trying, then you will still fail but it will be your fault.

I was going to check and see if he has been appointed to anything by Trump, but NIH still has a page that's kind of critical of him, so maybe not:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7377549/ 

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/04/reading-for-brain.html

When your parent has dementia

Of course, it could be a sibling or grandparent or spouse, friend... lots of things that can hurt. 

The lens I know is that of a daughter watching it happen with her mother. There was an aunt in Italy, but we only visited once during that, and it's just different. Nonetheless, when I send updates to my cousins, I know her son feels them differently than the others. 

The older ones also remember seeing it with their grandmother, but that's different too, even if there are things that overlap.

Also, while there are different types of dementia with different effects, the diagnoses are not always exact. My mother probably has Alzheimer's combined with some vascular dementia. 

The estimate is that one in three adults will develop dementia. 

That worked out exactly for my mother's family. Of the six who lived to adulthood, two of them got it.

That can raise chilling thoughts of your own susceptibility. I do think about that sometimes, but just dealing with Mom's is kind of all-encompassing.

This can also be an area where having family discussions are important, but perhaps not the whole family. A parent may be in denial, and the children need to talk together.

Denial can work in different ways, though. A common issue among siblings is that some will recognize the change and others will refuse to. It is usually the one who is closer and sees the parent more often who comes to terms with it first, but it's not just a matter of what you notice.

First of all, there are different stages, some of which can be quite subtle. Different people don't necessarily go through them in the same order. In addition those changes can be abrupt.

Some different stages we passed through were intact memories but unable to enter new things into short-term memory, able to stay on track if notes were left and meals were prepped, getting very weepy when left alone (I think because without memory working correctly, absence felt more permanent), constantly trying to get home (from home), and cheerfully telling long stories about things that never happened. 

This year has seen the loss of coherent speech. 

One thing that is important to remember is that it is not just memory. The hippocampus starts failing at processing new information, so it doesn't get forgotten as much as never entered into memory.

Some symptoms are more noticeable than others. That can make the denial easier, but so much of it is emotional. 

It really hurts when your parent no longer recognizes you, or is trying to get away from you so they can go to their children.

You are not going to be able to do what you need to do if you don't face it. It is so common for people to wander off, and they don't always get found.

I can give practical advice, like the importance of respite care when you are caregiving. Breakdowns and burnout are very real. A breakdown can be fixed fairly easily, but should still be avoided. Burnout lingers a long time.

I recently advised someone with some concerns to have her husband take a MOCA test. (Don't let the president give it a bad name.) If the test doesn't show anything it will be a relief, but if it does show something they can plan. There are medications that can slow the progress and that is worth a lot.

However, going along with this week's theme, there is a lot that you can't control. What ends up being the most important preparation is the person that you are.

How do you handle adversity?

How is your patience?

How personally do you take things that aren't really personal?

Those aren't easy questions, but good responses are useful under many different circumstances. 

Lack of control

Ironically, as I was working on yesterday's post about hospice, I was about to receive a call that the transfer had not gone through correctly. One thing about Medicare rules is that plan changes have to happen on the first of a month. 

That means Mom is still with her previous care provider -- who does not provide hospice services -- for another month at a time when we are measuring her life in weeks.

There is a lot that it probably won't change. Music therapy and therapeutic massage can be nice, but that's about improving some moments, probably not changing the course.

I do worry about some of the medication options. I did feel like a total failure and cried.

I thought I was going to write about dementia today, and dealing with it in a parent; that is a thing that many in my generation will deal with.

There's not a lot that you can control with dementia either, so it all kind of fits.

Apparently, Elder Place is notorious for requiring five days to get things switched over. I think we started the paperwork four days before the end of the month. It seemed like it should have been fine. The hospice group was surprised when I called and told them.

I called Elder Place before starting the switch because I wanted to make sure I wasn't selling them short or being underhanded or anything like that. I am pretty angry that they didn't warn me that it might be cutting it too close, and I am going to tell them that, probably later today.

However, it wouldn't have changed the switch to them when it happened because there were no other options.

We needed someone who took Medicare and Medicaid and did on-site or video visits and would do them specifically to Waterhouse Ridge and had an opening for an appointment to start primary care soon.

We thought we found someone who could work, but while they were okay with video visits for established patients, they would not do video appointments for new patients. We were going to have to drag Mom to Northeast Portland in November. Transporting her was difficult already, but that was far. Anyone located closer would be over three months to get in.

Medicare rules do affect things, as does some of the infirmity that comes with aging, but an additional problem was doctor availability. That was not limited to seniors; it came up a lot for many patients that I spoke to through my work.

That is not just a matter of insurance and means and doctors burning out, but also the education of new doctors to fill the ranks. That system is seriously flawed and there is no reason to be optimistic about it improving under this administration. 

You can't control any of that. It sucks, but it's part of life.

It would not be unreasonable -- as people plan family gatherings for the holidays -- to try and have some conversations about things that might happen and how those things might be dealt with. 

People might talk about insurance for long-term care, which can be very expensive, but also might not fit certain needs. 

It is not uncommon to find that you have enough money to not qualify for benefits but not enough money to pay out of pocket, which generally involves a process of running through all of the assets until they are gone. 

This has led some spouses to divorce so that the one who is expected to live does not have to do so bankrupt.

(My family was lucky; we didn't have anything to start with.)

Those things aren't good, and they aren't practical. Let's say you can afford the insurance, but then whatever happens happens in a way that doesn't meet the terms (that happens surprisingly often with supplemental insurance like AFLAC). 

Really, what we would want is a society with better overall coverage, which would benefit everyone. 

There is a bigger discussion there, which could open hostilities at some family dinners.

I'm not trying to solve that right now.

What I am saying -- and this is not a solution to anything -- is that there are extreme limits to what you can predict and control.

That doesn't mean it's not worth thinking about it and acting on things that do seem important, but just that there are limits, no matter how smart and hard-working you are.

Sometimes that leaves you crying and feeling like a complete failure.

Then you get back to work, if for no other reason than that there is nothing else to do. 

Checking your parent into hospice

I went through the hospice admissions interview for my mother yesterday.

I am writing about it because it is very much on my mind, but I also remember some other posts that were very well-received.

The first one was when she had her first knee replacement. Like now, I wrote about it because I was thinking about it a lot, but also it got an unusually high number of page hits. My theory was that other people had been researching knee replacements and shared it with family. 

It came to me really clearly that there were lots of people dealing with the same things. My generation has aging parents. The first knee surgery was in December 2010, but that hasn't become less true. Some of us have lost parents, but some of us have that coming up.

If there are some things where reading about them now helps you understand better later, that's great. 

It can also be good to remember you are not alone.

Mom was already in hospice once, so I learned a lot of this then. The first thing to know is that hospice is not a place. It is a medical status, so you are admitted and can be discharged.

The biggest change is that there is no longer curative treatment; everything is palliative. Instead of trying to change conditions you are trying to manage comfort. 

A lot of the technicalities do with who pays for what. There are ways in which the hospice reimbursement is better. This is why sometimes you may feel some pressure to switch to hospice, though there are still medical conditions that are legally required to be met. These conditions are periodically re-evaluated. 

I did write some about her first admission. It did not really seem like death was imminent, but there were all of these changes happening where we were not sure what was going on. When she was discharged from hospice, it was because her condition was stable and there was nothing going on that made it seem like she would die within six months.

Bear in mind that there are a lot of things that can't be predicted. If someone is in congestive heart failure, or really any kind of organ failure, there is a path you can trace. With strokes and heart attacks and aneurysms, there might not be clear indicators that something is pending. 

Now there are more signs that we are getting closer, with that still being hard to pin down. Maybe weeks; probably not months.

In the time over which she was first admitted, then discharged, and now being admitted again, she never changed her location. She did have to change her care providers a few times, because of rules and things. That can be disruptive. If you are looking into choosing a health plan or an assisted living facility, it's not a bad idea to find out if they have the ability to provide hospice care.

(Also note that changing medical plans happens much more regularly than changing facilities, so while both choices are important, the facility is probably more important.) 

Hospice can be a real help. The staff I have dealt with have been consistently kind and eager to help. 

There is a gravity to facing death. Having people who are professional and experienced and don't have a lot of prior emotional investment to deal with can be really helpful.

It is true that a lot of the care is focused on the psychological and emotional aspects, like having chaplains on staff who can talk to people about regrets and things. 

There are fewer guidelines to people who are riding it out all the way through the end stages of Alzheimer's.  

That is our current location. 

Movie "Business"

I have one last (probably) story from vacation. 

Maria has a backpack with Disney cats that people really respond to. Sometimes they compliment her, but I have heard people exclaiming about it to each other, without necessarily talking to her. 

Everyone wants to identify all the cats, which is harder than you would think. They come from several different movies, and they are stylized so they don't necessarily look the same.

One little girl did not recognize Figaro, so Maria named him and said he was Minnie's cat.

I heard the little girl's mother say "Pinocchio's cat."

I had that same thought, but I didn't say it. Becoming Minnie's cat has kept Figaro around more. He's a cute kitten so I like that. Of course, she should have adopted Cleo too; they go together.

Also, I try not to be a scold, especially with things that aren't important (though there is a level at which I think everything is important, and that's my issue.) 

I guess the theme of this week is that balance between enjoying yourself and getting bogged down in the problems and details. 

I can be a pain; I worry a lot about being annoying.

I actually don't complain a lot... probably the least among my siblings and I. However, it is very easy for me to notice the flaws in something and dwell on that and how to fix it. I notice that I have much more to say about the disappointing books than the ones I love in my Goodreads reviews. That feels wrong, but comes really naturally to me.

That my thoughts are all about how to make things better would not automatically make them less annoying. 

Diane Keaton died recently, so we wanted to rewatch Baby Boom (1987) -- a movie we had often caught on cable -- in her honor. We did that the Sunday night after we got back.

I have complained about movies to my sisters before, perhaps most noticeably on The Saint (1997). 

While I mostly enjoyed Baby Boom, there was something about it that really annoyed me about it. I never mentioned it, until we were talking afterward, I think about how Elizabeth should be much older by the end.

That is true, but normal compression when you can't control children aging. I mentioned some other movies where we saw that, but then we were talking about being realistic versus being a comedy, and unrealistic things that you have to overlook.  

They asked, and they knew whom they were asking.

That ending does not work. The most likely result of her turning down the Food Chain is that they would develop their own competition which would take over the market and put her out of business, maybe just leaving a local boutique niche. Yes, a small business can grow large under good conditions, but wasn't likely in this case.

She should have asked to have manufacturing happen in Vermont, in a bigger but nearby town where she could work on a schedule that worked for her without relocating, even if that meant a pay cut. The deal was huge; she had some room for negotiation. She also should have asked that her liaison be anyone but Ken (James Spader). That might seem petty, but he had sabotaged her so frequently that it would also simply be practical. If she was happy in Vermont and didn't want to go back to New York, that's great, but I don't think her choice was really all or nothing.

That speech at the end, where she mentions the veterinarian... I know that's supposed to be endearing, but it wasn't a great speech and just made her look goofy; she had her kissing scenes for that! I agree with the movies overall point about work-life balance and giving women options, but that takes smarter planning than she was doing. It's not like they were refuting capitalism.

Of course, the woman who -- demoted in the midst of a crisis -- instead of regrouping and finding a new job, sunk all of her assets into an isolated farmhouse with no experience of country life may not be the best planner.

But it's a comedy and so that's expected. I understand that.

More recently I had similar issues with Isn't It Romantic (2019). I mostly enjoyed it, but the ways they chose for showing how Natalie is put upon in the office and then how she asserts herself do not make sense for anyone who has spent time in an office.

It's almost like Hollywood writers are sometimes unrealistic. 

Especially about non-entertainment jobs.